It’s Friday liao, and weekend is approaching… we’ll only have 3 hours of ministry time on Friday as most student there don’t have lessons on Friday… we can see the difference the moment we enter the campus.. there’s lesser students walking around…
Since there’s fewer students walking around, it means there’s a even lesser chance of meeting a contact… so we decided to go to the dinning area at the campus centre to do our survey… there’s still some students there having lunch or resting… most people also pack their lunch from home as the food there, esp Asian food are really expensive… the only thing that’s cheap is pizza.. but cant eat that everyday la…
We sat there and met a group of students.. they’re from Singapore and Malaysia… we did the survey with them and start a conversation with them… they also told us more about Melbourne… but we did not managed to share the full 4SL with them as they prefer to read it themselves… but most of them took home the booklet and said they’ll try to come down to our booth next tue…
As we talk for more than 1hr, it’s already pass 1300hr and there’s not much student left in the dining area…most of them are eating or are locals… so we decided to go to the grass patch near the religious centre to rest as we’re suppose to meet there at 1400hr for a training session…
We had our training on Lordship of Christ at the main chapel of the religious centre… it’s a good environment as the place is quiet… but halfway through our session, we were informed that some ppl had booked the place so we had to leave… thank god we found another smaller chapel but this one has direct sunlight coming in so it’s abit hot…
After the training, as it was only 1630hr, we had some time to spare.. so we walk around the campus and take photos… at this time on fri there’s actually not much ppl left on the campus… looks like a holiday instead… it looks really deserted from far and its totally opposite to Singapore… in the campus there’s specific location where student clubs can paste their poster or flyer there.. the place is full of poster and there’s no guarantee that the poster will stay till the event date.. but we still decide to paste some of our poster there to ‘advertise’ our events next week: The High Visibility event and Student Life LIVE meeting…
We then proceed to the bus stop to take a bus to Wailing house… we are to take 738 but we forgot that in Melbourne they have the same service no. but will travel in different direction… so when we see the bus there as we walk to the stop, we just ran there and board the bus… it’s only after the bus left that we found out that it’s traveling in the other direction… actually this won’t happen to 737 that we usually take as it’s the terminal stop, but 738 is not…. So we had no choice but to alight and take the one from the opposite stop… while waiting we saw a 2nd hand car dealer and the 2nd hand car in melbourne can cost as little as $3499… that’s probably one of the cheaper things there compare to Singapore, but we cant bring back… haha… although the next bus is coming in 5mins but it’s terminating at monash uni… so we took that bus back and here we are… back at monash uni bus stop… we decided to wait there as there got another bus… luckily the Met card there allows unlimited rides within the period so don’t have to pay extra… we waited there for almost 25mins before the bus come… it took only 5 mins before the bus reach the place but we spend almost 1hr on it…
Wailing house is also a single storey house… in Australia as the land is big so there’s seldom multi storey apartment like our HDB… most ppl house are either terrace or bungalows… can affort that as the land is cheap… haha… we had our dinner and sharing there.. the spaghetti cooked by the Australia staffs are really good… the house is also very neat and tidy too…
We left the house at around 2030hr… the 3 Australian staff send us home in their cars as it’s inconvenient for us to take bus home… we also did not have our worship and devotion but we planned to start tomorrow…
Friday, April 22, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Day 3: 1st Ministry day in Campus
Today is our first ministry day in campus… but before we could leave our apartment the ppl from NP are getting very anxious as there results are coming out… as they got this SMS system which will send the results to them via SMS, so they’ll receive the result at 0830hr SGT which is 1030hr here… SP doesn’t have this system so still have to ‘hunt’ for a computer to check for ours in the later part of the trip…
Unfortunately one of them did not do very well and had to repeat a module… we had to comfort her and this has affected some of us for the first part of the day… also the rest they were excited that they pass… so we also leave later than what we suppose to.. as such, we miss our bus that we planned to take, the 1050hr one, so we had to take the 1120hr one… actually the ministry time in campus is from 1100h to 1600h, so we’re late in the sense…
When we reached the campus, most of us are quite anxious as it’s our first time doing street evangelism in another country… Moreover, many of us have not done it for very long… luckily, we have survey forms to help us to start our initial conversation with the students… As our focus is on international students, we should try to approach them… They can be distinguished quite easily from the locals, from their hair can already… each of us will pair up with another person and try to stick together on campus… I’m partnered with Jack…
As this’s our first day and not very familiar with the campus yet, for most of the time we just stayed outside along the pave way leading to campus centre doing surveys with the students… but we did not get to share any 4SL as the students are all busy rushing for class but could not stop to listen… still got some contacts though.. and passed them the poster of our events next week… We pack bread from our apartment for our lunch… but that’s not really enough, so we go to the campus centre to buy fries to eat…
After ministry time, we went to The Glen shopping centre for our grocery shopping… we had to buy our things like bread and food for us to last through the entire week… as we walk around we keep adding things to our trolley and at the end of it, we had 2 big trolley full of things… some more the thing is that the trolley here is larger then those in Singapore.. also lar, some of the things there are not very cheap, although some things like fruits are cheaper than s’pore they’re produced in Australia… I think we bought about 110 items and cost more than A$300… each of us had to hug several bags of things back to our apartment… luckily it’s only a 10mins walk and the weather is cooling… actually quite cold as the sun has set already… it’s only 1830hr here…
We took for our dinner tonight… as we’ll be cooking dinner at home most of the time on weekdays, we had a duty roaster and each of us will take turns to cook and wash dishes… as this is our first time cooking for the team, I think somehow we under estimated the size of the dishes and each of us only had a small portion of each of the dishes… it’s like food rationing… haha.. most of us are still hungry after that and open up the biscuits that we’ve just bought…
As most of us are still very tired, we decided not to have our worship again, and just have a debriefing before going to rest… think it’s becos our body are still not adjusted to the weather here, even thought we had a good sleep last night… we also decided to postpone our Great Ocean Road tour to next Saturday so that we’ll have time to rest over the weekend and plan for next week 3 major events…
Unfortunately one of them did not do very well and had to repeat a module… we had to comfort her and this has affected some of us for the first part of the day… also the rest they were excited that they pass… so we also leave later than what we suppose to.. as such, we miss our bus that we planned to take, the 1050hr one, so we had to take the 1120hr one… actually the ministry time in campus is from 1100h to 1600h, so we’re late in the sense…
When we reached the campus, most of us are quite anxious as it’s our first time doing street evangelism in another country… Moreover, many of us have not done it for very long… luckily, we have survey forms to help us to start our initial conversation with the students… As our focus is on international students, we should try to approach them… They can be distinguished quite easily from the locals, from their hair can already… each of us will pair up with another person and try to stick together on campus… I’m partnered with Jack…
As this’s our first day and not very familiar with the campus yet, for most of the time we just stayed outside along the pave way leading to campus centre doing surveys with the students… but we did not get to share any 4SL as the students are all busy rushing for class but could not stop to listen… still got some contacts though.. and passed them the poster of our events next week… We pack bread from our apartment for our lunch… but that’s not really enough, so we go to the campus centre to buy fries to eat…
After ministry time, we went to The Glen shopping centre for our grocery shopping… we had to buy our things like bread and food for us to last through the entire week… as we walk around we keep adding things to our trolley and at the end of it, we had 2 big trolley full of things… some more the thing is that the trolley here is larger then those in Singapore.. also lar, some of the things there are not very cheap, although some things like fruits are cheaper than s’pore they’re produced in Australia… I think we bought about 110 items and cost more than A$300… each of us had to hug several bags of things back to our apartment… luckily it’s only a 10mins walk and the weather is cooling… actually quite cold as the sun has set already… it’s only 1830hr here…
We took for our dinner tonight… as we’ll be cooking dinner at home most of the time on weekdays, we had a duty roaster and each of us will take turns to cook and wash dishes… as this is our first time cooking for the team, I think somehow we under estimated the size of the dishes and each of us only had a small portion of each of the dishes… it’s like food rationing… haha.. most of us are still hungry after that and open up the biscuits that we’ve just bought…
As most of us are still very tired, we decided not to have our worship again, and just have a debriefing before going to rest… think it’s becos our body are still not adjusted to the weather here, even thought we had a good sleep last night… we also decided to postpone our Great Ocean Road tour to next Saturday so that we’ll have time to rest over the weekend and plan for next week 3 major events…
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Day 2: Orientation and Prayer Walk around the Campus
We wake up at around 10am MEL time… (8am SIN time, so still ok)… then we had our brunch (meaning eating breakfast and lunch together) as it was quite ‘late’ liao, before we move over to have our training session on ‘Living with Harmony’… this is quite important as we’ll be living with each other for the next 19 days, and we have to learn to understand and give in to one another to prevent mis-communication or quarrels… we were also briefed on the Australia lifestyle and climate…
The session lasted for about 2hrs… after that, we got more excited as we prepare to go to campus, which is Monash University… to get there, we had to walk abt 10mins to the bus terminal to take a direct bus there… the bus no. is 737… along the way to the bus stop, we try to familiarise ourselves with the route to the bus stop as we’ll be using this road everyday…
Whoa… the bus intervals there are really long… about 20-30mins… cant afford to miss the bus if not have to wait for that long… we reached there at 2.35pm, just in time to catch the 2.40pm bus.. if not must wait till 3.15 then sweat liao… the bus ride took about 20mins, and along the way we get to see more of Melbourne… one of the most ‘funny’ thing is the traffic light… in Singapore at the traffic light predestrian crossing the green man will flash at the last few seconds but here it was the red man that flash… at first we thought there’s something wrong wit the traffic light…
After we reach monash uni, we went for a prayer walk around the campus… we also were brief for what we’ll be expecting for the next 10 ministry days in campus, and also to pray for it… we also went around exploring the campus like their canteen and religious centre… as we were hungry by then, we decided to buy somethings to eat… the food there also quite expensive, even on campus… I bought a fries for A$3…
Soon it was 4.30pm and we head to the cellar room to attend their live meeting, which is like our CLM… but theirs is only 1 hr long… we had worship and then a speaker will speak… but I think we were too tired and still not use to the weather that some of us fall asleep during the session…
After the meeting ended, it was 6pm and the sun has already set and the sky was dark outside liao… this is total opposite to Singapore… it’s still 4pm back home and the sun is still shining brightly… we talk with the aussies for a while before heading to the bus stop to go back to glen waverly fpr dinner…
We had our dinner at Grand Tofu, which is a Chinese restaurant… there’s a few other Chinese restaurant at glen waverly, like Bob’s kitchen… I had chicken rice… the serving of the food here is really big sia… for those small eater can actually share with another person… the price is like value for money, cos it cost $8 and got a serving about twice as big as in Singapore where it cost $4…
After dinner, we head back to our apartment… as many of us are very tired already, we just had a short briefing before going for our rest and sleep to prepare for tomorrow…
The session lasted for about 2hrs… after that, we got more excited as we prepare to go to campus, which is Monash University… to get there, we had to walk abt 10mins to the bus terminal to take a direct bus there… the bus no. is 737… along the way to the bus stop, we try to familiarise ourselves with the route to the bus stop as we’ll be using this road everyday…
Whoa… the bus intervals there are really long… about 20-30mins… cant afford to miss the bus if not have to wait for that long… we reached there at 2.35pm, just in time to catch the 2.40pm bus.. if not must wait till 3.15 then sweat liao… the bus ride took about 20mins, and along the way we get to see more of Melbourne… one of the most ‘funny’ thing is the traffic light… in Singapore at the traffic light predestrian crossing the green man will flash at the last few seconds but here it was the red man that flash… at first we thought there’s something wrong wit the traffic light…
After we reach monash uni, we went for a prayer walk around the campus… we also were brief for what we’ll be expecting for the next 10 ministry days in campus, and also to pray for it… we also went around exploring the campus like their canteen and religious centre… as we were hungry by then, we decided to buy somethings to eat… the food there also quite expensive, even on campus… I bought a fries for A$3…
Soon it was 4.30pm and we head to the cellar room to attend their live meeting, which is like our CLM… but theirs is only 1 hr long… we had worship and then a speaker will speak… but I think we were too tired and still not use to the weather that some of us fall asleep during the session…
After the meeting ended, it was 6pm and the sun has already set and the sky was dark outside liao… this is total opposite to Singapore… it’s still 4pm back home and the sun is still shining brightly… we talk with the aussies for a while before heading to the bus stop to go back to glen waverly fpr dinner…
We had our dinner at Grand Tofu, which is a Chinese restaurant… there’s a few other Chinese restaurant at glen waverly, like Bob’s kitchen… I had chicken rice… the serving of the food here is really big sia… for those small eater can actually share with another person… the price is like value for money, cos it cost $8 and got a serving about twice as big as in Singapore where it cost $4…
After dinner, we head back to our apartment… as many of us are very tired already, we just had a short briefing before going for our rest and sleep to prepare for tomorrow…
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Day 1: The Mission Begins… Flying off to Melbourne…
We assembled at Singapore Changi Airport at 1320h for our check-in process and to talk to our family members, friends and supporters who came to send us off… it is quite emotional for some of us as it’s the 1st time going for mission trip and be away from home for so long… we’ll be spending the next 20 days among the 12 of us…
All too soon it’s 1430h and it’s time for us to enter the departure gates… one of our team member’s pastor said a prayer for all of us before we bid goodbye and enter the gates…
By the time all of us enter the gates, it’s already 1450h, ½ hour before the plane takeoff… as such, we did not have time to look around those shop there and proceed to the plane at Gate 34… The airline that we took was Emirates… It’s my first time taking this airline and flying out of SE Asia, so I’m quite excited… there’s no queue outside the boarding gate… I think this is because the plane came from Dubai to transit here and most ppl are already in the plane…
A short while after we enter the plane… the pilot said we’re preparing to taxi out the runway for take off… quite surprise as it’s still 1510h and I think we’re one of the last few to board the plane… We take off at 1530h and start our 7 hr flight to Melbourne… it has a front view camera and we can see the runway clearly from our seats…
Inside the plane, we had our dinner and watch some movies… the in-flight system is not as good as the SQ one and we can only watch the movie when it’s play, and we cant forward or rewind it ourselves… the sun set about 3hrs into the flight and some of us starts to sleep while some of us and me continue to watch the movie…
Time flies even when we flies… haha… we started to descend to Melbourne airport and started to see the Melbourne night view… the plane landed at 0011h Melbourne time (Singapore time 2211h)… as MEL is 2hrs faster than SIN from Apr to Oct… between Nov to Mar, it’s 3hrs faster as they have daylight savings…
The checks at the airport is quite strict and it took quite long for us to clear the immigration… after that, ask we walk down to the exit, we keep thinking how cold is the weather outside, as we were told it’s 10 degree… yup, it’s really cold… don’t think we can survive without the jackets…
As it’s already 1am, two of the Australian staff came to pick us up and some of us take a cab down to our apartment at Glen Waverly. I was in the cab and the way the meter jumps is very scary sia… it jump 10 cents every second… we started at A$2.40 and when we reach Glen Waverly abt 40km away, the meter reads A$125 (which is abt S$160)… in Singapore this would cost only abt $40 with midnight charge… so expensive le…
Finally, we reach our apartment... it’s 0159h (2359h in SIN)… wow… look nice le… we just had our hot shower and had a light supper… going to sleep liao for tmr.. (today actually cos its 3am there liao..)
All too soon it’s 1430h and it’s time for us to enter the departure gates… one of our team member’s pastor said a prayer for all of us before we bid goodbye and enter the gates…
By the time all of us enter the gates, it’s already 1450h, ½ hour before the plane takeoff… as such, we did not have time to look around those shop there and proceed to the plane at Gate 34… The airline that we took was Emirates… It’s my first time taking this airline and flying out of SE Asia, so I’m quite excited… there’s no queue outside the boarding gate… I think this is because the plane came from Dubai to transit here and most ppl are already in the plane…
A short while after we enter the plane… the pilot said we’re preparing to taxi out the runway for take off… quite surprise as it’s still 1510h and I think we’re one of the last few to board the plane… We take off at 1530h and start our 7 hr flight to Melbourne… it has a front view camera and we can see the runway clearly from our seats…
Inside the plane, we had our dinner and watch some movies… the in-flight system is not as good as the SQ one and we can only watch the movie when it’s play, and we cant forward or rewind it ourselves… the sun set about 3hrs into the flight and some of us starts to sleep while some of us and me continue to watch the movie…
Time flies even when we flies… haha… we started to descend to Melbourne airport and started to see the Melbourne night view… the plane landed at 0011h Melbourne time (Singapore time 2211h)… as MEL is 2hrs faster than SIN from Apr to Oct… between Nov to Mar, it’s 3hrs faster as they have daylight savings…
The checks at the airport is quite strict and it took quite long for us to clear the immigration… after that, ask we walk down to the exit, we keep thinking how cold is the weather outside, as we were told it’s 10 degree… yup, it’s really cold… don’t think we can survive without the jackets…
As it’s already 1am, two of the Australian staff came to pick us up and some of us take a cab down to our apartment at Glen Waverly. I was in the cab and the way the meter jumps is very scary sia… it jump 10 cents every second… we started at A$2.40 and when we reach Glen Waverly abt 40km away, the meter reads A$125 (which is abt S$160)… in Singapore this would cost only abt $40 with midnight charge… so expensive le…
Finally, we reach our apartment... it’s 0159h (2359h in SIN)… wow… look nice le… we just had our hot shower and had a light supper… going to sleep liao for tmr.. (today actually cos its 3am there liao..)
Monday, April 18, 2005
Gen12ii Commissioning
Time is really fast... today is the Gen12ii Commissioning night liao.. and in less than 24 hours, we'll be on the plane flying to Melbourne to begin our 19 days missioin trip there...
we had our team retreat today, to set our target and goals for the mission trip... it's more than 5 weeks since our whole team last meet, and it's really great to see each other again 1 day before starting the trip... and to have a symbolic send off at the commissioning...
i also went for a photography workshop as i'll be helping the photographer to take photos... hope we can take lots of good photos during the trip... hee~
we had our team retreat today, to set our target and goals for the mission trip... it's more than 5 weeks since our whole team last meet, and it's really great to see each other again 1 day before starting the trip... and to have a symbolic send off at the commissioning...
i also went for a photography workshop as i'll be helping the photographer to take photos... hope we can take lots of good photos during the trip... hee~
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